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Cameroonian Asylum Seeker Dies in For-Profit Immigration Jail

HeadlineOct 03, 2019

In California, a 37-year-old immigrant from Cameroon died Tuesday after he fell ill in an ICE prison. In a statement, ICE said the man, Nebane Abienwi, became partially paralyzed after suffering a brain hemorrhage in the middle of the night at the Otay Mesa Detention Center. ICE says he was rushed to a San Diego hospital but died after undergoing treatment. The immigration jail is operated by CoreCivic, a for-profit prison corporation. In a statement, Lizbeth Abeln of the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice said, “The ongoing loss of life in immigration detention is not only heartbreaking, it’s infuriating. There is a bill sitting on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk right now waiting to be signed that would ban private detention, like Otay, from [California]. People in detention cannot afford to be behind bars a second longer, Newsom needs to sign now.” Later in the broadcast, we’ll have more on the campaign to end for-profit prisons here in California.

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